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Related: About this forumA 2,624-Year-Old Tree Has Just Been Found Growing in a Swamp in America
https://www.sciencealert.com/a-2-624-year-old-tree-has-just-been-found-growing-in-a-swamp-in-americaAlong the Black River in North Carolina, bald cypress trees have been quietly growing for millennia. Quite literally so: Scientists recently found trees over 2,000 years old - including one that is at least 2,624 years old.
That makes it the fifth-oldest known non-clonal tree in the world. (Utah's Pando, an ancient quaking aspen forest, reproduces asexually, by cloning itself from an 80,000-year-old root system.)
Another nearby tree was found to be 2,088 years old - and geoscientists believe that more bald cypresses (Taxodium distichum) in the Three Sisters Swamp could be the same age or even older.
"There are surely multiple over 2,000-year-old trees at Black River," geoscientist David Stahle of the University of Aransas told The Charlotte Observer.
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A 2,624-Year-Old Tree Has Just Been Found Growing in a Swamp in America (Original Post)
jpak
May 2019
OP
Glorfindel
(9,706 posts)1. They shouldn't publicize it.
The tree will become a target.
LastDemocratInSC
(3,625 posts)2. That's the first thing I thought, too
It will end up being riddled with bullet holes, just like the road signs.
JDC
(10,084 posts)3. Totally agree.
Princetonian
(1,501 posts)4. What method did they use to ascertain age?
I have always wondered...
Yonnie3
(17,376 posts)5. Follow the link in the original post above and you will find ...
"... Using a sampling tool known as an increment borer that does no lasting harm to the trees, the researchers can take a core sample that allows them to count the tree's rings - the ones made by annual growth layers. These samples can be complicated by core rot, resulting in trees that are hollow in the middle, so the team selected trees that are solid all the way through ..."
Princetonian
(1,501 posts)6. "... no lasting harm to the trees."
Thank you, Yonnie.